Reflecting on my Action Research Project

Topic:

If I design student centered teaching/learning lesson plans, how will my 4^th grade students’ engagement, success and inquiry during math and reading instruction improve?

Why I chose it:

The debate between traditionalist and constructivist approaches to teaching is one that has been going back and forth a long time. From my teaching experience I believe that having a constructivist approach to teaching is one that will benefit my students the most. By constructivist I mean, designing lesson plans with the help of my students’ interest and using cooperative learning strategies in my classroom. When I mean benefit I not only mean success on high stakes tests but also success in the real world when they leave school. I wanted to see how my students’ views of math and reading instruction would change when I implemented cooperative learning strategies. Throughout my short teaching career I have been criticized for there being “too much noise” in my classroom. I wanted to show that it’s not the noise level; it’s what’s being talked about that matters in the classroom

I believe that the problem in our education system today is the focus on achieving certain scores on certain tests, and not on giving our students the skills needed to succeed in a competitive global market. Problem solving, critical thinking, and teamwork are just some of the skills that cooperative learning strategies employ and are skills that you won’t find being tested on a high stakes test.

Proposal:

When trying to prove ideas or find the best solution, in today’s academic world there needs to be a researched based approach. I think this is especially true when you are trying to go out of the box with your instruction and out of the norm of what the teachers in your school normally do. Writing the proposal and doing it in a professional and academic way will provide me with the base to use my findings in my classroom and defend the choices I make with my instruction. I know it is important to be thorough and complete when conducting academic research and it starts with the research proposal. If the research proposal is not done with quality, that sets the grounds for the rest of your research.

Literature Review:

The literature review is a very important step in preparing your academic research. Without a solid literature review your finding might not be validated and your research might not be as authentic as it could be. While writing the literature it was very important to find empirical research from numerous sources expressing numerous viewpoints on the topic of your proposal. When I was able to collect research supporting different theories and creating different conclusions I was able to see the whole picture surrounding my topic. Without doing this I do not feel like I would have had the wherewithal to have research outline and proposal that covered all the corners of my topic. While writing the review, it was very important to situate the articles’ findings and themes into my topic in a way that made it my own while keeping the integrity of the research that was done in those articles. The importance of using direct quotes and direct ideas from already solid research is very important when trying to come up with solid research of your own.

Peer Writing:

I think the peer feedback was a very important part of the academic writing process. I think getting someone else’s view, which has different experiences and a different teaching background is very important. Peer’s with these attributes help you see things in your writing and in your proposal that you might not have seen. I valued the ideas of the professionals conducting the peer review process because I know that their ideas and critiques came from a professional place with innovation and cutting edge ideas. It was also great to see other educators’ proposals and drafts and see the approach that they were taking to the writing process. I think this helped me take the best from their writing and incorporate it into mine. Their constructive feedback was very beneficial to creating the final product.